


I Will Follow

by ectograsp



Category: Gilmore Girls
Genre: F/M, Literati (Gilmore Girls), Slow Burn, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-10
Updated: 2016-12-28
Packaged: 2018-09-07 15:30:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8806270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ectograsp/pseuds/ectograsp
Summary: Rory is pregnant and has a lot of decisions to make. Jess has spent a long time learning how to make good ones. Maybe that's something she can learn in the space of nine months.





	1. Chapter 1

Rory wishes she’d waited to tell her mom. It had seemed like the perfect moment; no news can blast the world apart from inside a gazebo. That flimsy wooden structure that sits in the middle of the square, creaking under its thirtieth layer of paint, has always seemed indestructible somehow. People orbit the gazebo in constant motion, leaping inside for respite like tired swimmers onto a boat. It is a kind of haven, like a bomb shelter; or maybe more like a snow globe. No matter how hard you shake it up, nothing ever leaks into the real world. When she was little, she and Lane had treated the gazebo like a mix between Narnia and Vegas; punches would not bruise, or time slip away. Secrets told in there were a kind of dry run for the real thing.

Maybe they should have sat in the gazebo-proper instead of on the steps. Magic has rules.

Because Rory has never seen Lorelai look so stunned, and she knows for sure what she’s suspected for days. This news is going to change everything.

‘Are you sure?’ Lorelai gapes. Rory raises her chin.

‘I took a test. With an actual doctor, not a stick. So yeah, pretty sure.’

‘I – how – who?’

‘Logan.’

‘Oh, God.’

‘I know. It was a total accident –‘

‘Well, of course.’

‘And he doesn’t know. Because I don’t know what I’m going to do.’

Rory’s voice wavers a little and she sees her mom’s shocked expression soften. Occasionally – and it would kill Lorelai to hear this – the very first, unchecked moments after a major revelation or shift in the foundation bring an echo of Emily to her face. The panic of a needle scratch in a carefully composed song; the instinct to cast blame, to get angry, or to throw up a wall. It’s what drove them apart all those years ago when Rory dropped out of Yale. But both of them bore the bruises of that time for too long to ever let the less charming part of the Gilmore genes override the identity they carved out for the two of them; unconditional love. Even if it isn’t always the first instinct, it’s the one they choose to go with. Every time.

‘Oh, Rory.’ Lorelai reaches out and squeezes her arm. The enormity of this – not just for Rory but for their family and everything it means about who they are – is something that only the two of them can understand, and the weight of that makes the love on her mom’s face somehow sweeter. ‘How do you feel?’

How does she feel?

She doesn’t know. There is a baby inside her, or the beginnings of one anyway. Lorelai used to tell her that she felt her presence from the moment the stick turned blue, a little internal compass that made her brave enough to not marry Christopher and not fall under the thrall of her parents and build the only kind of life that both of them deserved.

Rory doesn’t feel that. The baby is a fact but it’s not a person, not yet. All she can see are the divergent realities laid out in front of her – Rory gets an abortion. Rory gives the baby up for adoption. Rory keeps the baby. Three paths from which a hundred other possibilities flow, and they all seem impossible.

Rory a mother? If the last year has taught her anything it’s that she’s barely qualified to manage her own life. The only reason she’s not fired from the job is that no one else has volunteered. She knows the kind of grit and selflessness and stamina and spirit it requires to be a single mother; her example sits across from her now. Maybe those things lie dormant in her somewhere, but she doesn’t know if she can bring a baby into the world on faith alone. Alone.

Saying goodbye to Logan – for what would have been but no longer can be the last time – felt like a punch to the gut, but was also like being able to breathe again, and that makes no sense. She knows that if she called and told him, he would ask her what she wanted and if she said ‘to be with you’, he would drop his whole life to make that happen. It would be easy. A part of her wonders if it’s the right thing to do. And yet the thought of having him in her life, of raising a child together – she doesn’t see that. Children were not on her radar, but over the past few days when she’s dared to imagine her life as a mother, it is much easier to envision herself settling down in a potting shed than it is to picture Logan in the same frame as a baby.

‘I’m scared,’ she says finally, and Lorelai’s answering smile is rueful.

‘Ah, fear. You think you know it, and then you become a mother.’

=

The second wedding is beautiful, if markedly different from the first. Everyone crowds into the square to see Luke and Lorelai make their addict-dealer relationship legally binding. Lorelai radiates a rare kind of calm that probably comes from knowing that no matter if Kirk has some kind of terrifying hallucination or Miss Patty has planned an impromptu children’s performance during the ceremony, it’s done. She and Luke are married. The smile on her face as she walks down the aisle is less anticipatory as it is simply happy.

Rory catches her eye as she reaches the altar and part of her expects the beatific smile to drop just a little as her mom is reminded of what else is true on this day.

Lorelai pokes her tongue out, and the relief is so intense that tears well in Rory’s eyes.

=

She can’t help it – she’s so happy for Luke and Lorelai, really, but every time she talks to someone she is imagining how they would react if she told them she was pregnant. Lane – excited. Luke – protective. Taylor – panicked about the decline of the nuclear family in Stars Hollow. It’s growing dark and she’s eating fries – Lorelai was in charge of the catering – when somebody taps on her shoulder, and she turns in her seat to see Jess. Wearing a tuxedo she knows is chafing every inch of his soul, even if he doesn’t look it.

‘Hey,’ she smiles. Jess – well, if recent history speaks, he’ll be full of surprising wisdom.

‘Hey.’ He reaches out and steals one of her fries.

‘Hey!’ she protests, trying to smack his hand. She’s too slow, and he takes a mock-scared step back, hands raised.

‘Hey,’ he says, placating. He’s got his stern face on, but his mouth is twitching. She grins, remembering another time when their conversations had consisted entirely of identical one-word exchanges.

‘Luke said he told you about the guerrilla wedding.’

‘He did.’ Jess pulls up a chair next to Rory. ‘Said he was sorry I couldn’t be there. He’d tried to call me but I didn’t see it till this morning. And he knew I’d’ve kicked his ass if he didn’t do it on account of little old me.’

‘What was keeping you so busy last night?’ Rory asks, and she’s teasing, but immediately realizes what kind of answer she might be in for and blanches. Jess sees her expression and takes pity, not the bait.

‘I was babysitting Doula. She wanted to have a sleepover in the living room, but Liz and TJ don’t want her sleeping within twenty feet of a cell phone. They think the radiation might turn her into Spider-Man. I’ve tried explaining that a spider would have to swallow the cell phone and bite her for that to happen but reason is not always an effective method of persuasion with those two.’

‘Did you explain that if Doula was Spider-Man she could hawk Liz’s jewellery around town at twice the rate? I hear web-slinging is a very efficient means of transport.’

‘You’d think that would appeal to such a business-minded woman as Liz, wouldn’t you? But no, she was more concerned with the destabilizing effect all that swinging around would have on Doula’s chakra. It’s a good thing someone in the family thinks of these things.’

‘Somebody has to.’

‘We don’t want her to have an unbalanced chakra. The girl would get teased mercilessly.’

‘Now see when I was in school unbalanced chakras were all the rage, but kids and their new-fangled ideas about what’s in fashion…’

She trails off as Jess breaks the character of the bit and grins. She can’t help but smile back. There’s something about making Jess laugh – and for him a smile has always been kind of the same thing – that still makes her heart clench a little, even after all this time. He doesn’t give them away easily.

It’s funny to think of the kids they were and how unexpectedly their lives have turned out. She’d never looked down on Jess, not for a moment – he was too smart and fierce and he would have clocked it in a second – but she was arrogant enough to have believed that whatever success he had in his future, it would be overshadowed by hers. It wasn’t a jealousy thing, or even a pride thing – that’s just the way the tide was turning.

It has been a long time since she’s believed that, and the Jess in front of her is now not only more stable and probably more mature than she is (though she thinks the fact that she’s actually admitting she’s a mess is progress), but probably one of the most stable and mature people she knows. She looks up to him, a bit. His life was a shambles and he built it back up into something great.

Maybe he can be her Yoda.

‘What are you thinking about, Brando?’ Jess asks suddenly, and Rory realizes she’s been scrutinizing his face without meaning to. She shakes herself.

‘Just… what name I’m going to give you in my book,’ she says mischievously. ‘What you can do to convince me you don’t look exactly like a Wallace. Whether I prefer cash or cheque…’ her mind snags. ‘And, Brando?! Are you calling me fat?’ She’s not even showing yet!

‘I was referring to the pout,’ he said. ‘But don’t worry, it’s a tangential comparison. You have a much nicer pout.’

She pouts, and they fall into silence, eating her fries and watching the folks of Stars Hollow drink and make merry. It’s fun; they don’t really have to talk about it to share solidarity in their affectionate if slightly alarmed observations of the town. She doesn’t have to look at Jess to know that he is watching Babette and Miss Patty do the tango with a critical eye; that he’s staring at Steve and Kwan play the drums on their plates with chicken drumsticks in mild horror.

Oh God. She could have a boy. A chicken playing boy.

She could have twins.

She must look like she inhaled a fly, because Jess swallows his fry and narrows his eyes at her.

‘What’s wrong, Rory?’

His bantering voice is gone, replaced by a sincerity that Rory has come to associate with crossroads in her life. Apparently things get hazy for Rory Gilmore and Jess Mariano brings out the earnest. She almost feels powerful.

‘I… nothing,’ she says weakly, and he just looks at her disbelievingly. She’s never been a great liar, but that was pathetic.

Walk Like An Egyptian lapses as someone stops the CD player and Hep Alien rearrange some chairs to form a kind of rock-and-roll quartet. Lane may never have sold out an arena, but Rory knows she’s happy playing music for the people she loves. That she wouldn’t trade her kids for anything; not even to narrow the distance between her and a fast-disappearing dream.

Rory isn’t sure she’s like Lane.

‘C’mon,’ says Jess, and she looks back from the band to him to see that he’s standing up, one hand outstretched. ‘I owe you a dance.’

For the first time since he sat down, he looks nervous. Their missed prom – their missed everything – it’s behind them now, stories from childhood, and Jess has always let Rory decide when to bring it up or acknowledge it. It’s not something she asked for, but she’s been grateful for his hesitance at times. He knows he’s going off script, and he’s doing it to distract her from a problem he doesn’t even know about – it’s sweet.

She sees his hand falter a little as she stares at him. That she can’t stand. She gives him a smile, takes his hand – the breath he lets out is obvious – and follows him onto the dance floor as the music, something slow and schmaltzy that Lorelai loves and loves to laugh at, trickles into the air. His arm slides around her waist, and she rests her hand on his arm, which reminds her of something she’d meant to make fun of him for and never got around to. She giggles.

‘What?’ he asks, bemused.

‘I’ve been meaning to ask where you get your protein from, Rocky,’ she grins. ‘Do you even lift?’

‘Aw, jeez,’ he complains, looking embarrassed.

‘I hear they’re recasting the Mountain on Game of Thrones again, you’d be perfect for it.’

‘Thanks.’ He looks pained.

‘Seriously, if I need a car lifted off a baby, I’m calling you.’

Her mouth goes dry as he rolls his eyes. ‘That’s me. Professional baby rescuer. That’s how I got these muscles; lifting Philly cheese steaks off of kids.’

No doubt in a futile attempt to steer her away from the topic of his biceps, Jess raises his arm to spin her and Rory, kind of delighted despite herself, obliges. She’s wearing a dress with a cute flippy skirt and she might not have the requisite balance for much longer, so she has to twirl while she can.

Stepping back into his arms, Rory tilts her head approvingly. ‘That was a nice try, Mariano, but I still want to know the reason for these.’ She pokes his arm and he sighs.

‘No big reason. I go to the gym with some people from work a couple of times a week. It’s a social thing.’

‘Oh my God,’ her jaw drops. ‘Jess Mariano, doing something Californians would do because it’s social?’

‘Hey, people grow,’ he shrugs.

That kind of shuts her up.

‘Yeah, you did,’ she says, and he clears his throat.

‘You never did tell me what was wrong.’

The thing is, she wants to tell him. She really does. They’re friends, even if they hardly ever see each other – they manage to fall seamlessly back into old rhythms every time they do, and apparently one of those rhythms is Jess knowing the exact right thing to say when she feels like the ground beneath her feet is coming apart. She thinks telling him, talking to him, might give her some clarity.

But she has this instinct that she needs to make this choice on her own. If she does have a baby, and if she keeps it, she needs to be able to own that decision and she needs to know why. And as she looks at Jess, she remembers him saying You’re still a contender and the fact that he believes in her, in the bedrock of living a good life that is choosing right, is almost as good as his advice.

‘I’ll tell you,’ she says. ‘But not today.’


	2. Early Verdict

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lorelai brings out the pro-con list, but Rory may not actually need it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings in the end notes.

The morning after the wedding feels like reality setting in. Everyone of legal drinking age is hungover, with the obvious exception of Rory. But despite what is no doubt a truly terrible headache if the mashed potato pallor is anything to go by, Lorelai drags herself into Rory’s bedroom at the relatively decent hour of nine o’clock, armed with a box of Pop Tarts and a purposeful glint in her eye.

‘Morning, daughter,’ she says, sitting on Rory’s feet. ‘I bring you breakfast in bed.’

‘How fancy,’ Rory exclaims, scooting upright so that she can eat a Pop Tart without choking. ‘And is this breakfast free or does it come with a price tag of truth and decision-making?’

‘Think of it less as a bribe and more as positive reinforcement.’ Despite the quipping, Lorelai has her Mother face on. ‘I don’t want to pressure you, hun. I was too stunned earlier to ask how far along you are, but I assume you’ve… got time.’

‘I’ve got time.’

‘But I’m here, if you do want to talk. I can’t make this decision for you, and I know how awful it is when someone tries to do that, I would never want to –‘

‘Mom –‘

‘- But I can be an excellent contributor to the pro-con list.’

‘And you want to do this now?’

‘Now is as good a time as any.’

‘It’s the morning after your wedding!’ Rory exclaimed. ‘You should be with Luke, doing couple things. I mean – you don’t have to do _that,_ or you could, but you know – I wasn’t _suggesting_ it. But you should be with him.’ Her clumsy diatribe trails off, but she hopes her mom can see that she means it; she already feels kind of bad for spilling the beans on the day of. She shouldn’t consume the basking as well.

Lorelai rolls her eyes.

‘I’ve been married to Luke in all but name for years. I’m going to enjoy it being official, but not a lot is really going to change besides us finally being on the same page. You’re the one with the life altering choice in front of you. Luke doesn’t know yet, but if and when you tell him he would kill me for not focusing on you right now.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘You know how Harry Potter wanted to kill Voldemort? That’s me about this.’

Rory cringes. ‘Interesting analogy.’

‘Sorry.’ Lorelai reaches behind her back and pulls out something that was once Rory’s go-to in times of trouble -  a well-worn emblem of crises – an aide to decision-making that fell a little out of use some time circa-late Logan, marking a notable decline in the kind of decisions that Harry Potter would approve of.

The Yellow Legal Pad. Its smell is to books as carob is to chocolate, but it never let Rory down, and she needs some decision-making training wheels at the moment.

She smiles as her mom wiggles it excitedly, holding it out with a kind of nostalgic reverence.

‘A pro-con list, huh?’ Rory laughs. ‘I haven’t made one of those in ages. And I haven’t made one on an honest-to-God notepad since… well, Yale.’

‘Back to basics, baby.’

=

They sit in Rory’s room with the door closed for most of the day, like a sequestered jury. Nobody knocks. Rory doesn’t know what Lorelai told Luke to keep him at bay, but she’s grateful for his unflagging patience.

For a while, the Yellow Legal Pad stays untouched, and they talk. Rory tells her mom the whole messy, fucked-up saga with Logan. She expects her to get angry, the same way she expected her to when she told her she’d been sleeping with him all those months ago – she even kind of wants her to. She deserves it. But the only thing she sees in Lorelai’s eyes is empathy, and it occurs to her that her mom will never judge her for Logan. Not after Christopher. Maybe that’s letting her off too lightly, but it takes a huge weight off her shoulders to know that at least one person in the world can hear the worst parts of her and still love her.

At one point she catches Lorelai staring at her stomach, and she’s about to call her out when she realizes that her gaze has only followed Rory’s hand, which is resting over the place where a bump might someday be. She hadn’t even realized she put it there, but when she snatches it away – exchanging a glance with Lorelai that signals a mutual agreement not to discuss what just happened – she feels like she has laid bare something vulnerable and precious.  

She shoves the thought aside.

They tear out three clean sheets of paper, each titled with one of Rory’s choices, and lay them out on the bed like tarot cards.

ABORTION. ADOPTION. LORELAI GILMORE III.

‘It could be a boy,’ Rory reminds Lorelai. ‘We’d feel a little silly calling him Lorelai at the park.’

‘The name is a symbol,’ says Lorelai. ‘Of the continuation of the great and noble house of Gilmore. You could call him Bartholomew and he’d still be a Lorelai at heart.’

Her eyes are twinkling, but Rory’s gut clenches at the way her mom’s face has lit up as she talks about a baby. There was a time not so long ago that she was thinking about having one herself, and Rory wonders if a tiny part of her looks at Rory and sees her last chance.

‘Okay,’ she agrees. ‘But if I _do_ keep it, and it _is_ a boy, I’m breaking with tradition. At the very least changing it to Lore- _lo.’_

‘Loropher.’

‘Loras.’

‘Loriam.’

‘Loreluke. Hey, I kind of like that!’

‘Moving on,’ Rory says emphatically. ‘Let’s start. Give me a pro and a con for each option.’ She picks up a pen from the pile they’d thrown on the duvet and holds it aloft in theatrical readiness.

Lorelai raises her eyebrows. ‘I thought you’d be taking point on this and I’d be the scribe.’

‘My brain is stuck in paralysis mode. Get me kick-started.’

‘Okay…’

Lorelai looks down at the three sheets of paper, and Rory can see the cogs turning in her head.

‘So,’ she says cautiously. Each syllable falls slowly, like she wants to see how they land before dropping the next one. ‘Let’s just dive right in. Abortion, pro – this whole dilemma goes away. This becomes a blip on your radar. You’re finally liking your life again, I’ve seen it. And a baby changes your _whole life.’_

Rory swallows. ‘That’s a hell of a pro.’

‘Con. You don’t get a baby.’

If the pro was a slap in the face, the con is a hit straight to the heart. Lorelai clearly tried to be matter-of-fact, but the hushed, uncharacteristically earnest cadence to her voice gives her away. It’s a tone that Rory hears once every year – originally in this very bed, but now often over the phone or relayed in a voicemail message.

_Happy birthday, little girl._

It’s the way her mother’s words melt around the story of Rory’s birth.

She knows her wrecked expression is obvious when Lorelai looks guilty and grabs Rory’s arm.

‘Oh, sweetie, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to –‘

‘To what? Make it perfectly clear where you stand?’ Rory can’t meet her mom’s eyes. ‘That’s what I want you to do.’

‘This isn’t about me.’

‘Do you think I don’t realize how hypocritical I sound? Considering not having this baby when you had me?’

Lorelai gapes. _‘Rory.’_

The words pour out of her like poison. Every insidious, self-loathing thing she’s thought about herself since the phone call that tilted her world on its axis, and she was forced to hold herself up to her mom and see not the matching blue eyes but the thousand ways in which she is not (and might never be) like her.

‘I’m not like you!’ she says, trying to keep her voice steady. ‘I’m not brave. I’m 32 and your 16 year old self kicks my ass! I slept with a wookie –‘

‘ – Trust me, my 16 year old self has your 32 year old self beat when it comes to regrettable guy decisions.’

‘ – I slept with Logan! I led on a _great_ guy _forever_ because I was so wrapped up in myself that I couldn’t remember to be honest with him. I am so selfish, Mom. And I never learn! You are the best mother in the world – I could never, ever live up to that.’

‘Oh, God. Rory.’ Lorelai looks horrified, and she grabs Rory’s arm, gripping her so hard it kind of hurts. ‘Please don’t do that to yourself. First of all, I am proud of the job I did as a mother and the kind of woman I helped you grow up to be. No matter what mistakes you’ve made, you are a wonderful person with a great heart and the fact that you are being so hard on yourself for being human just proves that. Second of all, take a step back and try to remember that I am far from perfect as a parent. There were plenty of times that I did the exact wrong thing and you still turned out to be the kind of person I would trust with _ten_ babies.’

‘Not all good people are good parents,’ says Rory shakily.

‘That’s true,’ concedes Lorelai. ‘But I don’t believe that of you. Putting aside your myriad amazing qualities, which I can reiterate for you later, you are the hardest working person I know and if you did decide to keep this baby you would not _let_ yourself be a bad mother. It’s not in you.’

‘But I was never that little girl who dreamed about having kids. I dream about having to yell into my mike because the bombs were too loud in the background. Sure, I always thought maybe, someday – if I find the right guy. But we both know this is _not_ the right guy and I just – I don’t know what to do.’

‘Do you think I did?!’ asks Lorelai. A little impatiently, now.

_‘Mom.’_

‘Rory, if you don’t want a baby, if you don’t want to be a mother, that is your right and I will stand by you with no judgment. But do not give up something you want, even if it’s scary, because you think you can’t do it. You say you don’t learn lessons – learn this one.’

Rory swallows hard, staring at the floral pattern on her duvet. Trying to hold back tears.

She knows what her mom is saying makes sense. She shouldn’t decide whether or not to have a baby based on whether or not she thinks she can step into Lorelai’s shoes. Maybe her baby would need a different kind of mother; maybe she could be that. But she knows the kind of grit and selflessness and spirit it takes to be a single mom; her example sits in front of her now. Even if those things lie dormant in her DNA somewhere, she isn’t sure she can bring a human into the world on faith alone. _Alone._

If she’d been asked a month ago how she felt about Logan, she might have said she was in love with him. But she still didn't ask him not to marry Odette. Why did their last goodbye make her feel just as relieved as she did sad? He would be with her if she asked even now, yet when she looks into the future, she doesn't see Logan microwaving baby food and driving around with a seat in his car. No matter how hard she tries to envision it, with the same clarity as she can conjure him sitting at a bar or smiling at her while they’re dancing, she can’t.

But she’s been dreaming about a tiny, pink baby with impossibly fine eyelashes; she’s always thought babies smelled a little like milkshakes. She _loves_ that smell. She can picture a chubby toddler with dark pigtails weaving around her mother’s house on clumsy legs, cackling. She’s been making secret lists in her head; great children’s books, things you can’t eat when you’re pregnant. Names. In the car ride on her way to visit her dad, for a conversation that really only matters if she goes one of the three ways, she planned a diplomatic way to ask Paris for the use of one of her kids’ old cribs that are now gathering dust upstairs. She saw a child’s Halloween costume – a squat, lurid orange pumpkin – in a shop window the other day and nearly burst into tears.

The truth is, she wants the baby. She’s been clinging to the idea of needing to make a choice because deep down she’s already made it; she just doesn’t trust herself enough to know it’s the right one. It’s part of the reason she couldn’t tell Jess, even when the words were on the tip of her tongue. If he said she could do it, she would probably believe him. But she needs to figure that out on her own.

The baby may not feel 100% real yet, but she _wants_ it to be.

‘Rory.’ ‘Lorelai looks upset. ‘Stop thinking about what I would have done, or what I wanted. Or what I want now. What do _you_ want?’

Rory takes a deep breath.

‘I want it. I want to keep the baby.’

=

A while later, they emerge from the bedroom, both a little puffy eyed, to find Luke eating a burger at the kitchen table. He startles when the door opens, eyes wide. Rory feels kind of bad – he was clearly worried.

‘Hey,’ he says, glancing from Lorelai’s face to hers and completely failing to look nonchalant. ‘Everything… everything okay?’

‘Yeah,’ says Lorelai. ‘We’re fine.’

The elephant in the room is huge. In this moment, the baby doesn’t feel like a secret – it feels like good news. Rory’s stomach is fizzing with nerves, but she opens her mouth to tell Luke.

And then his eyes fall. She knows immediately that she’s done it again.

‘My God, you’re like Gollum and the ring,’ laughs Lorelai, teary.

Luke points, open-mouthed, at her hand where it rests on her stomach. That universal symbol for _get out the earplugs because it won’t be quiet for long._

‘No way. Are you –‘

He can’t quite get the words out, which doesn’t feel like a great sign. Rory bites her lip, and nods. If she thought his eyes were wide before, they get to saucer level now.

‘Holy – _wow.’_

He looks wildly at her mother, searching Lorelai’s face for an answer. He finds it when the corners of her mouth curl up – _We’re good with this._ And finally his face breaks into a smile.

‘Rory’s having a Rory!’

Ain’t that a terrifying thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who read, reviewed, bookmarked and gave kudos :) Second chapter is up! I apologize for the lack of Jess. It's an anomaly, I swear.  
> Please do review, and let me know if there's anything you like/dislike. It can only make me better. 
> 
> *tw: mentions of abortion*


	3. Authorial Intent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jess gives advice. Rory takes it.

It’s a bit counterintuitive to even think of something else while she has this huge _thing_ happening, but if she’s going to build a life for her and the kid (‘Sesame Seed’, as Lorelai has taken to calling it), then she does need to work towards _something,_ and so the day after she makes the decision to keep the baby, she gets out her laptop and starts on the fourth chapter of _Gilmore Girls._

It’s about that first Friday Night Dinner after her mom asked Emily and Richard to pay for Rory to go to Chilton. It seems like forever ago that her grandparents were strangers and not two of the people who know her best in the whole world, and it’s actually kind of difficult to accurately describe the feeling of walking into the Gilmore mansion like it was a dragon’s lair because she can’t access that emotion anymore. She knows that she felt strange and fish-out-of-watery, but while she knows Lorelai can flash back to the worst moments with her parents with just a whiff of Chanel No 5, Rory can’t. Her gut shows her a warmly smiling Grandpa and a Grandma who takes her arm and whispers conspiratorially about the maid. Her memory knows that they looked at her like an alien.

She’s never had to write her own life like it was fiction before, so she calls up her trusty editor. Even if it is 8pm and he’s technically off the clock, she’s pretty sure they’re still good enough friends for it to be okay.

‘Hey, Gilmore,’ says Jess, answering her call in three rings.

She smiles. ‘Mariano.’ There was a time when Jess was impossible to get on the phone – a combination of Luddite tendencies and a pathological avoidance of communication - and now he’s one of the most reliably on-the-grid people she knows. She remembers asking him once, why the change; apparently it’s 50% defiance of the reclusive writer stereotype (‘I know writers and that cabin-in-the-woods act isn’t cool, it’s annoying’) and 50% big brother duties. After a few too many instances of Doula’s school trying and failing to reach Liz and TJ on account of their ever-shifting philosophy on cell phones (radioactive monstrosities one day and forbearers of artificial intelligence the next), he signed up to be her emergency contact. It was Luke who told Rory that Jess has been known to wire lunch money to Doula when her parents forgot, or pay for her field trips last minute. When a little girl depends on you for stability, you make a habit of answering your phone.

‘When it rains it pours with you, huh?’ He sounds amused.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I don’t see you in four years and now you’re calling me at home,’ he teases.

Rory laughs.

‘This whole book thing was your idea, you have to live with the consequences.’

‘It’s your idea, Rory. I just pointed it out. And I’m not complaining.’

‘Well, Mister Editor-Slash-Pointer-Outer –‘

‘Hang on,’ Jess interrupts her, and there’s a brief kerfuffle and a loud beep.

‘What are you doing?’

‘I was in the middle of dinner, Lieutenant. I’m microwaving chow mein.’

‘Sorry,’ says Rory, guilty. ‘Is this bad author etiquette? I shouldn’t be calling you at night. I should have known that! I’m being one of those terrible artists who abandons all sense of consideration because they’re at the whim of their work.’

‘Rory, relax. You can call me whenever you want. I’m your friend.’ There’s a split second of hesitance before he says the word ‘friend’, and a slight uptick in tone that makes it sound like a question he didn’t really mean to ask.

Most of her conversations with Jess come so naturally that it always knocks her a bit when he does this; whenever they veer towards what they once were to each other, or what they are now, he gets skittish in a way that he’s grown out of in every other aspect of his life. She doesn’t know how to convince him he doesn’t have to be, and the time never seems right to bring it up.

 ‘Of course you are,’ says Rory quickly. ‘I just – you know what, never mind, I’m playing the friend card and using one of my untimely-phone-call cheats. I have an authorial question.’

‘Shoot.’

‘I can’t figure out how to separate the way things actually happened from the way I feel about them now.’

There’s a pause, and then; ‘Authorial question, huh?’

‘It is.’

‘What are you trying to write about?’

‘The first Friday Night Dinner.’

‘Oh, man. You sure you don’t want to save that for a whole other book? I’m sure your mom’s going to want to have some input, and then your grandma will want to rebut it. You could go chapter-on, chapter-off. Emulate the whole Friday Night Dinner format. With commentary from a psychologist.’

‘Be nice! And I think anything beyond a structured and succinct telling would venture into ‘only interesting to my therapist’ territory.’

She hears him laugh. ‘Okay, well what’s the issue?’

‘I don’t remember it properly,’ she explains. ‘It’s this huge turning point in my life, the real start of these relationships that formed me as a person, and I can’t remember how I felt walking through those doors. I know I didn’t always love my grandparents – which sounds terrible, but I didn’t always _know_ them. And when I try to write about it, it – I don’t know what I’m saying.’

‘The way you feel about them now is clouding your memory.’

‘Right.’

‘And you want to be accurate. Track how those relationships changed over time. Give them due credit for turning things around.’

‘Yeah!’ She’s a little stunned. Jess has her pinned, and what had seemed like a fuzzy and abstract problem is now concrete and phrase-formed.

‘This is _your_ story, Rory. It’s not a historical document and if you try to write this objectively, without bias, you’re setting yourself up to fail. If all that matters is how you feel about them now, write about that. Tell your readers that you can get past a shitty beginning and make something so good it doesn’t matter anymore. That’s part of your story too. You’re, uh… you’re good at letting go of the past.’

Jess finishes his spiel somewhat lamely, but Rory is lost for words.

‘Wow. This editor schtick… I’m impressed, Jess.’ She means to sound light-hearted, but the sincerity she’s feeling seeps into her voice and she knows from the time it takes him to reply that he feels that. Doesn’t really know what to do with it.

‘Well,’ he clears his throat. ‘I’m honoured, Rory.’

=

‘Do you want me to go with you?’

‘No, Mom. I want you and Grandma alive, unmaimed and speaking to each other when my baby is born.’

=

It’s a strange feeling, driving out of Star’s Hollow. The town seems so pristine – innocent, almost. Rory knows she’s projecting. Telling the townspeople (the village that raised her) that she’s pregnant won’t dull the paint on the white picket fences. It probably won’t even make them look at her any differently. Nobody ever looked at her mother, the teenage runaway who had a baby out of wedlock, with anything less than respect and love. None of them could ever resist a baby anyway; one more set of chubby cheeks for Babette to coo over, for Kirk to market a line of funny-slogan onesies to, for Miss Patty to dress up as a bluebell and send stumbling through a captivated audience with fistfuls of glitter. Taylor may have an obsessive need to prune the town like it’s an unwieldy rosebush instead of a human population, but even he has never cared where how a kid came into the world, as long as they didn’t drive too deep a dent into his perfect Pleasantville world.

All the same, she feels very old as she drives away. Like she’s a parent off to do something difficult and sad that the kids will never know about.

Emily cares how a kid comes into the world.

Rory thought long and hard (okay, over a chocolate cake she split with Lorelai – she would have preferred a bottle of Scotch, but that was out for obvious reasons) about how to tell her grandmother. She had decided that Emily had to be the first person to know after Lorelai and Luke, even if she was dying to run over to Lane’s and tell her everything. If Emily is going to scream at her about choices she made surrounding her child’s birth at some Friday Night Dinner ten years from now, not telling her the news in a timely fashion won’t be one of them.

After all, she is the third Gilmore girl.

=

The house is light and bright and airy – in many ways the opposite of the Gilmore mansion that had always seemed as much a part of Emily as her skin, and yet this fits better. Emily has always been larger than life, a big enough personality to draw focus even amidst all the finery of her old house. But here, she does more than hold your gaze; she commands attention.

‘I’ve been watching this marvellous documentary,’ says Emily, leading Rory into the sitting room and sitting her down on a wicker chair as she pours drinks. When Emily reaches for the vodka, Rory casually requests a ginger ale.

 _Wicker._ Hell has frozen over.

‘It’s about whaling in Japan. Gruesome practice, absolutely horrible. I’m thinking of setting up a fundraising drive to raise awareness at the museum.’

‘That sounds great, Grandma.’

She hears her voice slip off the rails of normal, a notch too cheery, and Emily’s eyes narrow as she senses concealment. The corner of her mouth curls and Rory can see the second she decides to excavate Rory’s secret from under whatever bullshit is obfuscating it – her God-given mission as the Gilmore matriarch.

‘So, Rory,’ she leans forward. ‘How is everything? Are your mother and Luke enjoying their honeymoon stage? I know they’re not having an actual honeymoon, which I find ridiculous, but I hope they are taking some time to themselves.’

This is the lulling-you-into-a-false-sense-of-security stage. Get you talking, gain some momentum so that once she gets to the important question the answers slip out like marbles from a chute before you even realize what’s happened.

‘They are,’ Rory reassures her. ‘Mom took the week off and Caesar’s running the diner except for when Mom goes for breakfast, and then Luke has a very short, one-meal shift that Mom likes to say he gets paid for in ways far better than cash. I usually stop the conversation there.’

‘I don’t blame you,’ says Emily, eyebrows raised. As intensely curious as she always is about her offspring’s life, to the point of being intrusive and inappropriate, she does draw the line at sex. Unless you’re young enough to be presumed a virgin and she’s trying to whack the libido out of you with a reverend-shaped bat.  

There’s a loaded silence while they sip at their drinks, until Rory shakes herself. She’s not here to dance around her grandmother’s inquisition; she _wants_ to tell her.

‘I have some news,’ she blurts out, and Emily leans back, satisfied.

‘Well yes, I know,’ she says.

‘It’s… pretty big. And you have a history of not reacting particularly well to this kind of pretty big news, so I need you to let me tell you everything before you react and just… know that I am aware I have made a lot of mistakes but I have resolved to put my best foot forward from here on out, and I want you to be a part of that. A big part of that. And… please keep an open mind.’

‘Alright,’ Emily agrees, looking concerned now.

Rory steels herself.

‘I… am pregnant.’

For a moment, Emily’s face doesn’t move. She stares a Rory intently; maybe looking for some kind of sign that she’s joking. For a tell that says she’s dreaming. Then her mouth falls open.

‘I’m sorry, I could have sworn you just said you were pregnant.’

‘I did. And Logan is the father.’ May as well hit her with everything at once.

‘Logan Huntzberger?!’

‘That’s the one.’

‘But he’s engaged!’

‘Yeah, that hasn’t changed. I’ve been staying with him when I go to London. It was a kind of ‘what happens in Vegas’ deal. And before you condemn my generation for our slutty, immoral ways, be aware that most people my age would look down on me for this as well, so your outrage is completely valid and cross-generational.’

‘I – I can’t believe it!’

‘I’m keeping it, by the way. The baby. So you’re getting a great grandchild out of this, at least.’

Rory didn’t realize Emily Gilmore could be made speechless, but what sits before her now is a woman completely at a loss for words, and she squirms under her grandmother’s disbelieving stare. Watches as the way she sees her changes a little bit, forever. The progression of emotions on her face goes something like shock to horror to fear to vulnerability, and Emily raises her chin before saying, ‘Well, I hope you know that things aren’t going to be how they were with you and your mother.’

That wasn’t what Rory expected at all, and it must show because Emily scoffs. ‘Please, Rory. I’m not going to scream at you and call you a fool, though you have been a remarkable one. I’m not going to fret over the family’s reputation, which has survived far worse. I won’t demand you marry Logan. I’ve learned that it’s pointless to try and force these things, though I stand by my principle that a child needs a mother and a father and I hope you won’t repeat your mother’s mistake in _that_ regard.’

‘I haven’t told him yet,’ says Rory quickly. ‘So please don’t spread it around.’

‘I would never,’ says Emily, dignified. ‘You are going to tell him, though?’

‘I… yes,’ says Rory, because that’s what she’s leaning towards. ‘Soon. When I figure out… how to tell him. And how I want things to be.’

‘Good.’ A tiny, almost sad smile appears on Emily’s face. ‘I won’t scold you for this, Rory. I have spent too many years scolding Lorelai about you to suffer the delusion that it does anything but a drive a person away. But I do wish your mother’s recklessness in this area had skipped a generation.’

‘It’s not Mom’s recklessness,’ says Rory honestly. ‘It’s mine.’

She’s expecting people to make the false equivalency, over and over again, but she feels like it’s her duty both as a daughter and a mom-to-be and someone who wants to stop being a flaming pile of garbage that at the very least _she_ remembers that she’s a 32 year old who is responsible for her own choices and not a teenager. Even if it’s tempting to let herself forget.

‘So how far along are you?’ Emily asks, clasping her hands.

‘About seven weeks.’

‘Have you any plans? Where are you going to live, how are you going to work? Is Logan going to pay for everything? He needn’t, I have plenty of money. _Gilmore_ money.’

‘I’m probably going to need lots of it,’ admits Rory. To anyone else, that would be a kind of skinflint, mercenary thing to say, but she knows that to Emily a confession of dependence is an act of generosity in itself, and indeed Emily’s eyes get a bit shiny, no doubt imagining the mountains of baby clothes she’ll be able to have commissioned. Her baby will probably wind up dressed like a dauphin.

‘As for where I’m going to live… with Mom, for now. For a while, anyway. I’m still writing my book. I know it’s not going to make me JK Rowling but it’s something to focus on, a way to get some momentum back. And I can keep writing for the Gazette as well.’

‘You mustn’t give up on your career,’ says Emily seriously. ‘Your mother never did, and your situation is a good sight easier than hers was. Even if it was of her own making.’

‘I won’t,’ smiles Rory. ‘Grandpa would turn over in his grave.’

Emily stiffens a bit at that, and Rory mentally smacks herself. Things were chugging along so nicely. But she knows that if her grandpa were here, the conversation would have taken a completely different turn. She’ll never be anything close to happy that he’s dead; she misses him every day. But a tiny, yellow-bellied part of her is a teeny bit relieved that she’ll never have to see the look of disappointment and contempt on his face if he found out she had got herself pregnant out of wedlock, to an engaged man, before she ever really fulfilled any of her potential.

‘I do wish Richard were here to see you now,’ says Emily, misty, and Rory raises her eyebrows.

‘Really?’ she asks hesitantly. ‘I was just thinking how he’d be really mad.’

‘Oh, he would,’ says Emily. ‘I am, a little. But he’d soon get over that and remember that the most disappointing thing Lorelai ever did got us you.’

And now Rory’s eyes are shiny.

‘Wow…’ Her voice is croaky, and she laughs weakly. ‘I hope so. I feel like when I die and hook up with Grandpa in the Dostoyevsky section of heaven, I’m gonna have some ‘splaining to do.’

‘As long as your child gets itself into Yale, my girl, everything will be fine.’

=

She stays for dinner, and gets in the car to start driving back after dark. Before she starts the engine, she pulls out her phone to text Jess.

_You were right about my grandparents. Who they turned out to be at the end is more important. Thanks for the advice._

She’s at a STOP sign when her phone lights up with his reply, and she picks it up off the passenger seat to read it.

 _Remember you said that._  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who has read and reviewed! I love feedback :) Let me know what you think of this chapter!


	4. Breaking Mirage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rory continues to bring people in on her secret... and then there was one.

The next few days are devoted to the Rory Gilmore Pregnancy Reveal Tour, final show to take place over the phone with an audience of one Logan Huntzberger. Date undetermined.

Lane, veteran of the unplanned pregnancy and expert roller with the punches, is cautiously reserved until Rory confirms that she’s keeping the baby and her feelings about it are at least 80% happy (leaving plenty of space for terror, shame, self-doubt and unbelievable hunger). Once that’s clear, Lane’s excitement is off the charts.

‘I can’t believe you’re having a _baby!’_ she gapes. ‘With _Logan!’_

‘Do you think I’m a terrible person?’

Lane rolls her eyes. ‘I think that Kwan is going to be lead singer, Steve can be the drummer, your kid can play guitar with those long Gilmore fingers and Sookie’s kids can pick up whatever instruments are left. Every band needs at least one illegitimate love child. It’ll spice up the origin story documentary.’

‘My kid will be a little young to be in a band with the twins.’

‘Every band also needs an Angus Young.’

=

Paris hones in on the situation with the laser-focused ferocity she devotes to all her projects.

‘I can get you an appointment with the best obstetrician in the State,’ she argues. Why is she arguing if Rory isn’t fighting with her? Who knows.

‘Thanks, Paris,’ says Rory. They’re sitting in a café in the city, drinking coffee (Paris, bless her soul, assures her that the occasional cup will not hurt the baby). Rory had told Paris the news over the phone, but she demanded to see her in person so she could hand over a mountain of pregnancy and childbirth reading ‘so you know that if you pass a clot the size of a baseball post-birth you’re fine, but if it’s more like a grapefruit then you need to call the doctor.’

‘Doctors are morally deficient morons,’ Paris practically snarls. ‘They capitalize on the rampant under-education of expectant women about their own bodies so they can run roughshod over your birth plan and get Little Lorelai IV’s cord clipped before the Dodgers game starts. You have to be your eyes, ears and claws in that birthing room, Rory. If you feel unsure about anything, tell the doctor, but wherever possible, make him give you options.’

‘I –‘

‘Screw that, doctors are liars. When your first contraction hits, call _me.’_

Rory is trying hard not to laugh. She knows that when Paris gets insane and paranoid, it means she cares. She pities the obstetrician. If Rory is denied so much as a cup of ice chips when the baby comes, they’re going to wake up with a horse’s head under the sheets.

‘So. Logan, huh?’

The urge to laugh dissipates. Paris has a familiar murderous glint in her eye.

‘Don’t, Paris,’ she sighs.

‘Don’t what? Mentally condemn that ashy haired, squinty eyed Gatsby villain to a life of exorbitant child support payments and misery? You won’t be the first, you know. His destiny is crystal clear; a cornucopia of ex-wives and mistresses and enough love children to fill the proverbial shoe.’

‘This is as much my fault as Logan’s.’

She feels like a sneak, going around whispering her secret to everyone but him while they form their opinions about what he’ll do before he can even decide or defend himself.

‘Maybe, but he’s the one who’s cheating on his fiancée and you’re the one who has to grow the human inside you. Like a baby tomato on the uterine vine, generated by his insidious fuckboy seed.’

‘Ew!’

Paris leans forward, intent, and not for the first time Rory understands why whoever interviewed her at Harvard back in high school might have taken her mode of personal interaction as a compelling reason to end a multi-generational Gellar/Harvard dynasty.

‘I want to represent you.’

Rory shakes her head, nonplussed. ‘What do you mean?’

‘In court. I’ll take him to the cleaners’!’

‘I don’t want to take him to the cleaners’! I want…’ she trails off, because she can’t wrap her head around what she wants when it comes to Logan.

‘Go on,’ says Paris calmly. She always goes one of two ways in a crisis, either feeding off the existing anxious energy and amassing a tornado of shrill aggression, or – every now and then – balancing it out and rising to the occasion with uncharacteristic chill. ‘Finish that sentence.’

Rory sighs. She knows bits and pieces of what she wants, but she doesn’t have a _plan,_ and it feels too messy to say out loud. ‘I don’t want to marry Logan,’ she says. ‘The part of my life where we were together… I think that’s over, I think it’s meant to be done. I’ll miss being with him, but… it was never how I was meant to end up.’

‘Okay,’ Paris nods. ‘Good. Do you want him to be a part of the baby’s life?’

Does she want him to be? Yes. But what that would or should entail has her befuddled.

‘When I think about my dad… my mom made the right call. He was too immature to be a real father. He would have let me down whether he was living with us or not and Mom made it so that when he disappointed me it was a sucky weekend, not a life-changing ordeal.’

‘Your dad was sixteen when you were born.’

‘I know, and Logan’s an adult. And he’s not my dad. I think he’s… better. He tries to be, anyway. We’re not going to be Mr and Mrs Huntzberger, but there has to be a middle point between that and Lorelai and Christopher.’

‘Plenty of divorced parents manage it,’ Paris points out, and it’s a good point. That’s kind of the closest thing to what she and Logan will be.

‘I have to tell him soon,’ she says, mournfully. ‘It’s not fair that so many people know already and he doesn’t.’

‘You will, when you’re ready. But Rory… I know you believe the best of Logan. And as much as I hate to admit it, you know him better than I do. Maybe you’re right. But kids make people crazy, I’ve seen it. You’re already thinking about your baby before you even consider what Logan might want. Be prepared for him to feel the same way. You might not be the first thing he thinks about when he decides what he wants out of all this.’

 =

Her dad is in Paris visiting Gigi, so she tells him over Skype, more to get it out of the way than because it’s really pressing that he knows.

 ‘So this is why we had that conversation about regrets and fatherly involvement, huh,’ he asks wryly.

‘It was a factor…’ she shrugs. ‘Honestly, I always did kind of want to know.’

‘I think I might have given a different answer if I’d known what you were going through, honey.’

‘I wanted honesty. Not for you to tell me what I wanted to hear, whatever you thought that might be.’

Over the years, they’ve settled on an approach to their father/daughter relationship that works for them. Rory doesn’t pretend to have the same expectations or faith in Christopher that she would have if he’d actually raised her, and he doesn’t pretend that this isn’t 100% fair.

‘I didn’t say I’d have lied, but… look, I stand by what I said. Everything worked out the way it was supposed to with us. When you were growing up, me saying that was a cop-out. I know there were times I should have been there and I wasn’t. But now you’re a grown woman and my acceptance of the fact that I was close to obsolete in forming you as a person is not a duck. I’m trying to be honest about my capacity as your father. You thrived without me and I have to live with that. With what that says about me as a person.’

Rory listens to him talk, watching his grainy miniaturized expression get sad on her laptop screen.

‘Okay,’ she says at last. ‘I… I don’t know what you want me to say.’ She doesn’t want her father to feel bad, but she won’t lie to comfort him either.

‘I’m just saying, Rory, that Logan is not me. If he decides to stay away – or, hey, if you decide that – then I have no doubt that your kid will be just fine. But don’t assume that Logan isn’t capable of being more than I was. If nothing else, he has sixteen years on me when I became a dad.’

‘I know he has a right to know. But I can’t tell him until I know what I want, or at least what I don’t want. Because if I talk to him and I’m not sure, he might charm me into just doing the easiest thing.’

‘Take some time, then. But don’t do him favours like your mom did me; she wanted me to have a life, a career. That all factored into it. Logan’s an adult and he has to act like one.’

‘He will.’

=

The phone call with Logan goes like this.

She sits at the same desk where she studied for finals at Chilton, with the bedroom door closed even though the house is empty – her mom and Luke are at the movies. The fear in her gut is like the nerves she’d get before doing a big speech at school, one thousandfold, and she feels weirdly guilty for letting that feeling grow so close to where the baby is. It’s irrational, but she doesn’t want the baby to be nervous about its dad.

 _Sorry, baby,_ she thinks, because she can’t help it. She goes to Logan’s entry in her phone contact book. The picture she has of him is an old one; him at twenty one, young and grinning at her at some party, a drink in his hand.

They couldn’t have just ended things there?

It’s 7:45pm – 12:45pm in London. Not the most civilized time to call, but they’re kind of beyond that, and Odette will be sleeping.

She takes a deep breath, and presses _Call._

The phone rings six and a half times before he picks up, a sleepy ‘hello?’ on the other side of the world that makes Rory’s heart jump into her throat. _Oh God oh God oh God._

‘Logan,’ she says, high pitched, and she can _hear_ the surprised smile on his face when he says, ‘Ace…’

She wants to throw up.

‘I wasn’t expecting to hear from you,’ he says. Maybe she’s imagining it, but she swears she can narrate the sounds behind his voice; the rustle of bed sheets, the quiet padding of feet on floorboards, the sliding-open of the balcony door and the click of it shutting behind him.

‘Yeah, me neither. Expecting to hear – to contact you,’ she says. ‘How – how are you?’

‘Fine,’ he says. ‘Is everything okay?’

‘Okay?’ she squeaks. _Woman up, Rory._ ‘Yeah, okay… but um, I have something to tell you. And to ask you.’

‘I’m all ears.’

‘Okay,’ she says, and man, she _really_ wants to throw up. ‘Okay, I’m just going to tell you, there’s not really any way to lead up to it. Logan. I –‘ _fuck –_ ‘Logan –‘

‘Rory, what’s wrong?’

She wants to say _nothing, it’s not that anything is wrong_ but what comes out is ‘I’m pregnant.’

In the seconds that follow she swears she can hear her own heartbeat. It’s the one of the worst feelings she’s ever had, waiting for Logan to react.

‘You’re –‘ he chokes. ‘You’re what?’

‘Pregnant. Almost eight weeks. Yours, obviously.’

 _‘_ Rory… _’_

‘I hope this doesn’t have to be said, but it wasn’t on purpose.’

‘Of course not, I know you better than that,’ says Logan dismissively, and the knot in her chest unclenches a bit; she’d been worried about that. ‘I… how do you feel?’

‘Hungry,’ she admits. ‘Nauseous. A little tired.’

‘Yeah, I… have you thought about what –‘

‘I’m keeping the baby, Logan,’ she says, and hopes she sounds confident.

She hears him exhale. Is he disappointed? Relieved? ‘Yeah. I figured.’

‘You did?’

‘Would you have told me if you weren’t?’

‘Yes,’ snaps Rory, and feels like a rat, because she honestly doesn’t know if she would have.

‘Okay. I believe you.’

She can picture him, leaning against railing of the balcony with his hand over his eyes. Thinking face on.

‘I’m not putting any pressure on you,’ she says, breaking the silence. ‘You can be as involved as you want to be, whether that’s no contact at all or financial support or liberal visitation. You can have as much access as you want, but you have to decide before the baby’s born and then you can’t change your mind. That wouldn’t be fair.’

This is what she decided – to give Logan the choice, but to make him stick to it. She can deal with whatever he decides, but the baby shouldn’t have to grow up like she did, wondering why Christopher couldn’t make up his mind about something as simple as whether or not he wanted to be her dad.

Her words hang, and she expects – a thank you, maybe, or some kind of expression of solidarity. Then to her surprise, he scoffs.

 _‘Fair?’_ There’s an undeniable note of anger in his voice; Rory has so rarely heard Logan genuinely angry that the sound send chills down her spine, and she clutches the phone, scrambling wildly back through her words to figure out how she brought this on. ‘Is that seriously what you just said to me?’

‘Logan…’ she says helplessly.

‘You really think that low of me, huh?’

Oh, no.

‘I think a lot of you!’ she protests – and it’s true, despite everything.

‘I notice that among all these options you so graciously offered me,’ he says icily, ‘you failed to mention that we could raise this kid as a family.’

‘No, we can’t,’ she says shakily.

This is the argument she really didn’t want to have.

‘Why, because I’m such a selfish, irresponsible asshole?’

Because I don’t like who I am when I’m with you. I don’t want that person to be my baby’s mom.

‘Logan, I never said that! No, because you have Odette. You’re going to start a family with her, you know that, you signed up for that!’

‘You know I didn’t want to.’

‘But you _did,’_ she emphasizes. ‘What you wanted doesn’t really matter after that.’

There’s a loaded pause; Rory knows she’s hit a nerve. Logan’s been told his whole life that what he wants doesn’t matter; it’s what the family legacy requires that’s important. What he cares about – who he loves – has never even been relevant to his family, and his resulting unhappiness was nothing but an irritation.

Rory used to be the only person in the world who did care what he wanted, and she knows that by failing to uphold that she’s broken something between them; one of the last, fraying threads of a connection that had once bound them closely and now only held both of them back.

But there’s a real baby involved now. She can’t treat Logan like one.

‘Odette doesn’t have to get in the way of us,’ he says finally, and her jaw drops.

‘Excuse me?’

‘Don’t get all Mary Poppins on me, Ace. We don’t have to be a traditional family to be happy – I can set you up with the baby somewhere, be with you when I can. We could avoid all the family bullshit and the expectations and the scrutiny – just be us, together!’

She is shaking, now.

‘This baby isn’t an escape hatch, Logan.’

And the anger rushes back.

‘Jesus Christ. You really have no faith in me at all, do you.’

Rory is crying, now. She can’t help it. She never wanted to hurt Logan; she’d meant to make this easy for him, to give him choices. That’s what she’d decided she wanted – to let him choose. It had never occurred to her that he would pick something she couldn’t possibly allow.

He clearly hears that she’s crying, because he sighs, the fury draining away, and when he next speaks he sounds exhausted and flat.

‘You knew what you were getting into with me when we started this whole thing. You knew about Odette. I guess I always thought you were taking what you could get with me because life was working against us. Not taking advantage of the fact that I was engaged because you didn’t actually give a shit.’

‘That’s not fair,’ whispers Rory.

‘Look, whatever you need money-wise, it’s yours. I’m sure you didn’t doubt that. Send me bills, send me receipts, and I’ll take care of everything. I can’t keep this from my family so I get that you’re not jumping up and down to have me, but it’s pretty damn likely that Odette won’t be when she finds out either so I honestly have no idea where I’m going to be or what will happen tomorrow. Maybe I should figure all that out before we decide the rest of it. The visitation thing.’

‘Okay,’ says Rory pathetically. She wants to punch herself in the face, and Logan too, but all she can get out is; ‘But… but you do want it?’

‘Yes, Rory. I know what it’s like to have a shitty dad too, remember?’

‘I do remember. I do. I know you’re better than that, Logan.’

‘You know,’ he says, nearly whispering, ‘when you called, I thought maybe you were going to ask me not to marry Odette.’

Rory’s face crumples. ‘I’m _sorry,_ Logan.’

‘Mm. Okay. Bye, Ace.’

He hangs up, and Rory bursts into tears.

She has seen Logan pissed off and derisive before, and she’s been the subject of his outrage and his disappointment, but never before has he spoken to her with contempt, and it feels like glass under her skin. It’s not just that she never wanted to hurt him – she didn’t – it’s that she had to spoil their last, perfect moment in the B&B with this _mess._ It’s that she can’t decide whether his hurt over what is essentially her rejection of him should be enough to excuse his being a _dick_.Taking the moral high ground with her over Odette is pretty rich, if you ask her – and he completely twisted her words to make it sound like her taking the pressure off of him was some kind of grand insult.

Not once did he mention what was best for the baby.

She’s been focusing so hard on how great it will be to have a baby, cruising along on everyone’s positive reactions, and she let herself forget that none of this was planned and it will never, ever be remotely simple.

=

She potters aimlessly around the kitchen; makes herself some thoroughly substandard mac and cheese and tips a quarter packet of chilli powder over it for kick, then sits at the kitchen table with her laptop, opening her manuscript. The spicy mac and cheese gives her an excellent excuse to cry and a brilliant cover if Luke and her mom get home early. She has half a mind to write a blistering, ungenerous introduction to Logan and send it straight to Jess before her conscience gets the better of her; she knows Jess would enjoy it anyway, and she’s already typed _I called him a butt faced miscreant and he would go on to prove I had the instincts of a goddamn detective_ when her phone rings.

She jumps and looks at the caller ID, filled with dread, but relief floods her when she sees that it’s Jess.

‘Hi,’ she answers, cursing the way her voice always gets hoarse when she’s being crying.

‘Hey,’ he says. ‘I got your latest draft… is this a bad time? Are you sick?’

‘No, no, I’m fine,’ she sniffs. ‘I went to a concert. I screamed a lot.’

There’s a beat.

‘What concert?’ Jess asks, suspicious.

‘Um… the Frightened Rabbits.’

‘That Scottish emo band? I don’t believe you. You could never understand British accents in singing.’

‘I’ve developed my ear,’ says Rory tremulously, but her voice cracks, a total giveaway, and she gives up and dissolves into tears again.

‘Shit,’ she hears Jess say over her crying. ‘Rory… please don’t cry, come on. Calm down.’

‘I am calm,’ she sobs.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing,’ she says, crying harder.

‘I… dammit, it’s really hard to comfort someone over the phone –‘ he sounds dismayed.

‘It’s okay, really. I’ll be fine.’

‘I wasn’t trying to get out of it, Rory. Can I come over?’

She laughs wetly. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, you can’t come all the way to Stars Hollow just to stop me from crying.’

‘I’m at Liz and TJ’s. They can spare me. _Please_ let me come.’

The honest pleading in his voice grabs at her heart, and the part of her she doesn’t like to think about that always holds Jess a little at arm’s length completely splinters.

‘Okay,’ she says, voice small – because screw it, she wants to see him.

‘I’ll be there in fifteen minutes, okay? Drink some water.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do I know how to get rid of the damn first-chapter notes so they don't appear at the end of each new one? No I don't :)
> 
> Please enjoy and let me know what you think! If this story was in Acts, consider this the last scene of Act 1. Coming soon, Act 2 (the Act of Jess). 
> 
> Logan is not going to feature very heavily in this story, but I did want to do justice to his reaction. Despite shipping Literati with the ferocity of a thousand suns, I don't hate Logan.


	5. Scene Analysis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jess and Rory talk. A lot.

By the time she starts to regret letting Jess come over, he’s pulling into the driveway.

It took him fifteen minutes to get here and she’s not even crying anymore, just sitting at the kitchen table and trying to wrangle a confused mess of anger, shame and fear that sits in her ribcage like a sullen creature and refuses to shift. He knocks, and when she doesn’t answer the door opens slowly; hesitantly.

‘Rory?’ he calls, voice concerned and tinged with uncertainty.

‘Come in!’ she yells back.

A few seconds and he’s in front of her; for a serial saunterer he arrives in the kitchen at a brisk speed, and she sees a bit of fear on his face before he clocks her and sees that she has dialled the emotional breakdown back from Ron Burgundy in the phone booth to Garfield having a bad day. Dressed in a well-worn charcoal top, jeans, and a pair of lace up boots that look like they survived a zombie apocalypse, he might have raided his teenage self’s closet if it weren’t for the added breadth of his shoulders and full-fledged adult male scruff. Besides, teen Jess would have scoffed at the idea that he’d ever have hair that long – or be a first draft pick for emotional support.

‘You okay?’ he asks, searching her face. She knows she looks like shit, but she’s grateful that his expression doesn’t reflect that; his eyes comb her for some clue as to the source of her distress, but it’s a gentle combing. The last time she saw him was at a wedding; she was wearing a beautiful dress. She wishes she was now.

‘I’m embarrassed,’ she admits. ‘I don’t know why I told you to come, I’m fine.’

‘You’re not fine, you were crying. And I offered,’ he says sternly, and moves to sit in the chair opposite her at the table. Rory can feel him staring at her, and cringes a little. Because fuck, she _is_ embarrassed now.

She’s used to having Jess’s good opinion. Even when she’s disappointed him in the past – refusing to run off with him, dropping out of Yale, screwing with his head - she knows he’s always had this deep belief in her capacity to be a good person. To do good things. In her life, people have encouraged her to make mistakes or punished her for them, but Jess is the only person who ever pointed out a way for her to climb out from a hole of her creation without judgment. But she’s 32, and she wouldn’t blame him if he finds out who she’s really become and writes her off as a once-promising prospect that went too far down the wrong path to bother investing in now.

‘You know I’ve got to ask what’s wrong,’ he says eventually, after the silence becomes untenable.

‘Yeah, I know,’ she says miserably, looking down at the table top. ‘I just wish I didn’t have to tell you. When I said come over I was just thinking you’d know how to make me feel better, and then I realized that first I’d have to tell you and I just… it’s gonna suck.’

‘Is this about what was bothering you at the wedding?’

‘Partly.’

She wrenches her eyes up to his face. He looks completely calm, waiting patiently for her to tell him the thing. He clearly doesn’t think there’s anything she could have possibly done that would change the way he looks at her.

‘I’m pregnant,’ she says.

Jess jerks back.

He looks… well, stunned. He opens his mouth a couple of times without saying anything, speechless in an involuntary way that feels markedly different from his usual, deliberately taciturn manner, and she can see him scrambling for words for her benefit, trying to downplay his total shock at the way she’s managed to turn her life into great source material for a Tennessee Williams play.

His hand, resting on the table top, has curled into a fist. It occurs to her that Jess might have his own, personal reasons for being upset. She shoves that thought into a corner.

‘Uh… I didn’t expect that,’ he breathes. ‘I… I didn’t even know you were seeing anyone.’

‘No one did, because I was seeing my engaged college boyfriend.’ She’s figured out the best way to tell people this is fast and blunt. ‘Not something I’m proud of.’

He raises his eyebrows. ‘Logan? Seriously?’

‘Yeah, I know.’

Jess shakes his head, trying to slot this information into his head in a way that makes sense. Pushing away whatever emotions are flickering in his eyes to access some rational path forward.

‘Is that why you were crying? Because you’re pregnant?’ he asks carefully.

‘No, I’m happy about that. Mostly. I was crying because I just told him and we had a big fight and it was awful.’

Jess’s jaw clenches.

‘What did he say to you?’

‘He wanted to get back together and raise the baby with me. When I said no he got really mad and then he came up with this idea to put me up in some sleazy cottage with the baby and be his weekend family, and when I said no to that he got _really_ mad.’

Saying it out loud like that, it sounds even worse and a new bolt of anger rises in her, making her cross her arms.

Jess’s eyes go dark.

‘He got mad at _you?’_

‘I know!’ she says. ‘I mean, I understand why he was angry –‘

‘I don’t.’

‘Jess.’

‘Seriously,’ he argues, leaning forward. ‘Rory, you haven’t done anything to him. To his fiancée, maybe – it’s not my place to say, for all I know it’s a Charles and Diana situation. I’m not gonna pretend to know why the hell you thought hooking up with that smug Joffrey Lannister lookalike again was a good idea, engaged or not. But you don’t owe _him_ anything.’

Rory is quiet.

‘You don’t think I owe him a shot?’

‘No. Being a family isn’t something you do because you owe the guy. You either want it or you don’t. If you tried anyway, believe me, your kid would grow up knowing they were the reason you had a life you didn’t want. I know how that feels. Don’t do that.’

Hearing Jess talk about his mom – about how he feels about her – is something Rory long believed she would not live to experience, and she freezes, distracted momentarily from her own problems. From little things Luke has said, she knows Jess and Liz have a much better relationship nowadays, but she also knows that Jess’s feelings about her were once so raw and difficult and complicated that he couldn’t speak about them at all, and teenage Rory is practically quivering inside of her right now, frantic not to startle him out of this unexpected openness because she’s so desperate to understand.

‘You think your mom felt that way?’ she asks softly. His face is a little flushed, and she realizes that he isn’t actually all that comfortable talking in this way, but he’s pushing through it, and she’s hit with a sudden overwhelming and totally inappropriate urge to give him a hug.

Jess shrugs. ‘I know she did.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be. I’m over it. I know she loves me now. Wasn’t fun being the bane of my mom’s existence as a kid, though.’

‘Do you think Liz tried her best?’

Jess appears to genuinely think about it.

‘I honestly don’t know. I see her with Doula now, you know, and she’s still a fruitcake. Still forgets to brush her daughter’s hair before she goes to school; forgets what school she goes to, half the time. I’m the only person who knows this kid’s blood type. Mom treats Doula like a grown woman one moment and a two year old the next, depending on her mood. I see all this stuff she’s doing wrong and it makes me want to kill her, but then I think about Doula’s sixth birthday.’

‘Her birthday?’

‘Mom threw her a party. That kind of logistical undertaking, the food and the decorations and stuff, it’s way out of Mom’s reach but she had charts with kids’ names on them, everyone in Doula’s class, and she made this cake out of weird custard balls –‘

‘A croquembouche?’

‘Gesundheit.’

Rory rolls her eyes, smiling.

‘But anyway, it was a month in the making. Doula was six and I could see in her eyes that she was just as nervous as she was stoked. She’d already twigged to Mom’s pattern, the grandiose ideas with shitty follow-through. It got to the morning of her birthday and I was there when she got up, coming out of her room all slow like she wasn’t sure the sun was gonna rise and didn’t want to get her heart set. The party was all made up, balloons everywhere, cake on the table, and I swear to God I’ve never seen a person look that fucking happy before or since.’

Jess’s voice when he talks about his little sister is uncharacteristically soft, and Rory finds herself completely endeared.

 ‘So your mom, she’s trying now.’

Jess scoffs; not in a mean way, in a resigned way.

‘Yeah, she’s trying. Doesn’t mean it always works out. Nobody showed up.’

‘What?!’

‘Liz forgot to send out invitations.’

‘Oh my God!’ Rory’s hand goes to her mouth, and Jess nods ruefully; clearly trying to be casual. But she can tell it kills him a bit.

‘Doula talks about that day now and she’s fine. Totally jazzed that Liz put in all that effort. She got a whole cake to herself and we had the next door neighbours over to play musical chairs; Luke won a sombrero. But for like, half an hour after we realized what happened, she could not stop crying. And I was the one who sat with her and tried to make her laugh because Liz was busy crying too.’

‘Jess… that’s awful,’ Rory says helplessly.

‘That’s Liz doing her best. And it’s a hell of a lot more than I got. I don’t know if she just started trying or if she got better at it, but she never threw me any kind of birthday party.’

This she is so proud of him for. Talking about what his mom does and doesn’t do for Doula is one thing – he can put on his big brother hat and act tough. Talking about what hurt _him_ is a Herculean freaking task that his upbringing and brooding Danes genes make even harder, and she is so damn impressed that if this were a show she’d be throwing roses at the stage.

‘Jess…’

She says his name in wonderment, meaning to get across both how proud she is of him and how appreciative that he is talking about Liz because it’s relevant to her dilemma, but he seems to misunderstand her tone.

‘I’m not telling you this for pity, Rory,’ he says quickly. ‘I’m just saying… Liz is one of those people who should never have been a mother and I think as much as she loves us, both of us, there’s this version of her life that she imagines where she never had to stop being a kid cause she didn’t have any, and that’s the one she would have preferred. She could never hide that.’

She sees where he’s going, and exhales.

‘I don’t want to raise this baby with Logan.’

‘I know,’ he says fiercely. ‘And you told him that. See? Nothing wrong. Your kid should know you picked the life you have with her.’

Rory snorts. ‘Her, huh?’

‘Well, it would give you the option to write Gilmore Girls II,’ he grins. ‘Anyway – forget my mom. Do what Lorelai did. She struck out on her own, made a life she loved so you could grow up and have every chance to do that too. You _know_ how to do this, Rory. She showed you how.’

 ‘I don’t know,’ says Rory doubtfully. ‘Sometimes I feel like my mom was a once-in-a-generation talent when it comes to parenting. Like Stephen Hawking, or Beethoven. Adele.’

‘Parenting is a teaching job. If you accept the premise that she was good at it you’ve got to accept that you can be good at it too because that’s what she taught you.’

‘You know,’ Rory says slyly, ‘for someone who could never hold a conversation with my mom for longer than a couple of minutes without going all Tom and Jerry, you talk about her like you… like her.’

Jess rolls his eyes.

‘I respect her like hell. She makes Luke happy, and she adores you, so she’s got good taste. I can never quite make up my mind whether or not I like her. But I sure wish my mom was more like her.’

Rory can’t help smiling; it makes her happy to think that Jess has softened towards her mom. She knows Lorelai has warmed to Jess over time, even if she still can’t quite divorce the concept of a grown-up Jess from the Jess that made her blood boil with over-protective maternal rage when Rory was in high school. It never sat well with her that two of her favourite people didn’t like each other, and despite Jess’s hedging she’s pretty sure that what he’s saying here is that he likes her mom.

‘I just… you’re right, I know you’re right,’ she admits. ‘I can’t make decisions based on whether they hurt Logan’s feelings. I just wish… I don’t know, that I’d been clearer with him, or kinder maybe. I feel like I got his hopes up for some big romantic story where he finally has a reason to abandon everything he hates about his life and I know that’s wrong, for a baby to be that, but what if I made him think that?’

‘Fuck that,’ says Jess. ‘Fuck him. Why are you beating yourself up on this asshole’s orders?’

‘I’m just trying to hold myself accountable. I’m trying to be a better person. A… a good mom.’

The truth is, she sucks at accountability. It’s always been what has gotten her into trouble; it’s been what keeps her there for way longer than necessary. Taking responsibility for her own choices and mistakes was something she was protected from for a long time; she started learning way too late, and now it will probably never come naturally. Part of her always wants to run to her mommy, whether it’s for a quick fix or to hear someone who loves her tell her she’s not an awful person when she’s done something objectively awful. But she has to start having better judgment if she’s going to shape a real live human being who doesn’t grow up to have the exact same issues she does.

‘Okay,’ Jess says slowly. ‘I get that Rory, believe me. I wish my mom had a bit of that. But it shouldn’t mean you let Logan, or anyone, get away with making you feel guilty for shit you’re not responsible for. Contrary to what I’m sure Logan tells himself, nobody has the power to make him marry this woman. He made that decision and he has to live with it. You aren’t at fault for not bailing out a grown man in a situation of his own making.’

Rory laughs a little in disbelief. ‘How did you get like this?’

Jess looks taken aback. ‘What?’

‘You’re like Dumbledore!’

‘Jeez, that new Gilette fusion, really not up to snuff when it comes to a close shave.’

‘I mean with the imparting of the wisdom and the freaky, intuitive parsing of my thought spaghetti jumble for meaningful truths!’

‘Thought spaghetti jumble?’

‘And you’re so verbose! It’s not just today, it’s – I mean, I turned around one day years ago and you’d changed into this… this great guy. Not that you weren’t great before, but you were different. Angrier. And it’s like you just figured yourself out. I wish I could learn how to do that.’

As she talks, Jess’s eyes get progressively wider and by the time she’s finished he is once again visibly speechless (that’s two proven methods discovered today; shocking announcements and heartfelt compliments).

‘I, uh…’ he stammers – clearly completely unprepared to deal with this onslaught of praise - and Rory feels bad. She realizes that after trying so hard throughout their conversation not to scare him back into silence by drawing attention to how much she cared about what he was saying, she has now thrown a spotlight on him.

‘I’m sorry,’ she says, awkward for the first time in this thus-far surprisingly un-awkward conversation. ‘I didn’t mean to freak you out.’

‘No, it’s um…’ he struggles for words. Rory can’t tell if he’s embarrassed or flattered.

‘It’s nice to hear,’ he manages finally, keeping his gaze on the table. ‘Thank you. But through some weird twist of fate, you and I only seem to run into each other when you’re in an existential crisis. I don’t think you’re looking from the most objective place.’

‘Well,’ Rory beams, ‘when I figure out my shit we’ll have to hang out so I can get a look at you in the harsh light of day.’

Jess gives her a rare, wide smile. He’s an eternal smirker, but you can always tell when the smile wins out over his sense of cool because one corner of his mouth tugs up way higher than the other, crooked and completely against his will and – she’s sure to his chagrin – very uncool. It’s her favourite of his expressions, though.

‘Sounds good.’

As if both of them feel like the conversation has dipped into D&M territory for long enough, they move on in unspoken agreement to the topic of Rory’s book. She’s just wrapped up her and Lorelai’s road trip to Harvard – that heady, bittersweet day when they were frantically trying to find something in the future to be certain of without saying out loud that was what they were doing. In retrospect, it’s funny that Harvard was always this bedrock of her identity – something she was so utterly, bone deep sure of. Picking Yale in the end hadn’t even bothered her; leaving behind that old, ill-fitting dream was as easy as letting go of a balloon. Or maybe it was the same dream, in a place she’d always told herself not to look.

Narratively, she thinks it will set her up to make a nice point about the nature of change and adaptability when she writes about Yale.

But after finishing that segment, she wants to stop writing in chronological order, even if she more or less intends to structure the book that way. It’s bogging her down a bit, tramping through her past with such laborious attention to the sequence and order of events. She explains this to Jess, who agrees that it might be helpful to skip around; write about what she’s feeling when she feels it, and what she remembers when it’s relevant to that feeling. 

She makes coffee, and pulls out some cold Chinese food; Jess pulls out a foil-wrapped piece of chocolate cake from his messenger bag, explaining sheepishly that he’d snagged it on his way out of Liz’s in case she was too far gone when he arrived to respond to anything but chocolate. He’d forgotten about it in the wake of the pregnancy bombshell, but they peel back the foil and eat it out of the crinkly metallic shell with spoons.

‘Doula and Liz made it,’ Jess says. She understands now why he sounds pleased when he says it; he takes the little things when they come, and he’s glad his sister gets to make cake with their mom. It’s _great_ cake; there’s something unexpected in it, cinnamon maybe.

She mentions that it’s been hard to concentrate on writing with everything that’s been happening – not to mention that she feels bad intruding on her mom and Luke in their honeymoon phase – and she can see, as they talk a bit about Luke’s recently renewed attempts to integrate decaf into the household (Rory being pregnant is a fantastic excuse) that he is thinking something over.

‘Hey look,’ he says hesitantly, as she brings out her laptop to show him her notes on the day she interviewed at Yale, ‘I don’t know what your schedule looks like but you can write anywhere. You should come to Philly for a while.’

Rory stops in her path, and she sees him clench his teeth, clearly nervous.

‘What – really?’ she asks incredulously.

‘Yeah,’ he says. ‘Nobody lives in the place above Truncheon anymore, you can stay there. Do some writing, check out the city – I know it’s cliché but the whole change-of-scenery thing really works to clear your head. You can even help us with some editing if you want – we couldn’t pay you, but you’d get a good insight into the publishing process you’ll go through when that book of yours is finished.’

‘You say that like it being published is a sure thing,’ he points out.

‘No such thing as a sure thing in publishing, Rory,’ he says honestly. ‘But I’d bet on you anyday.’

He scoops up another spoonful of cake, giving her a moment to think about it.

She does really need a place to write; something about being in her old bedroom makes her writing feel small, and her insights limited to what she might have thought up when she was still rocking Chilton plaid and wearing tulle to school dances. She’s always loved that her mother’s house is noisy – if it’s not TV or music it’s the constant chatter of her mother and her mother’s rotating roster of visiting friends, interspersed with Luke’s gruff hum – but it’s not a place designed for productivity, but for fun.

She likes Philadelphia, and she likes Truncheon. Being around other writers sounds great, and having easy access to Jess’s opinions and careful eye will only help her progress.

Not to mention the fact that talking to him makes her feel better about everything, full stop.

She can’t go on that basis, though. She’s not under any illusions that Jess has been pining for her for the past decade or anything – she knows he’s moved on – but she also knows that he looks at her sometimes like he’s still seventeen and she isn’t totally sure what that means. She’s not really in a position to find out, either – pregnant and recently broken up (if you can call it that) with the engaged father. Not that she would _want_ to find out. She’s completely past all that. She doesn’t want to give Jess the wrong idea.

Then again, she doesn’t really believe Jess would take her coming along on a kind of writer’s retreat to Philly as a sign that she was looking for anything resembling romance.

They’re friends. What’s more, if one of the main reasons she doesn’t want to be around Logan is because she doesn’t like herself when she is, the person Jess sees when he looks at her is somebody she really wants to be.

‘Okay,’ she says, throwing caution to the wind. ‘I’ll come.’

And Jess smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like with any other show I could not get away with an entire chapter devoted to what is essentially a single extended conversation, but Gilmore Girls is so dialogue-driven that I'm just doing it. I hope you like it! It's literally a Jess/Rory chatapalooza. 
> 
> Please comment and let me know what you think about this chapter! Particularly about the Rory/Jess dynamic. 
> 
> Btw, would anyone be interested in a chapter from Jess's perspective? I'm contemplating. 
> 
> Thanks to everyone who gave kudos, bookmarked, and commented; you make me happy :)


	6. Backdrop Crew

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rory goes to Philadelphia.

The morning after Rory decides to go to Philadelphia, two things happen:

1) She texts Logan.

2) She gets morning sickness.

There is no empirical proof of a relationship between the two occurrences, but she’s not a scientist, she’s a writer and symbolically there’s some kind of meaning in that sequence of events.

The text says _My next doctor’s appointment is in two weeks. I’ll call you after._ She doesn’t get a response, and she doesn’t mind as much as she thought she would.

She knows morning sickness is a good thing; her body recognizing the baby as a foreign entity and producing higher amounts of human chorionic gonadotropin. In the folder entitled ‘Pregnancy Symptoms’ given to her by Paris, morning sickness is listed as one of the most common, usually beginning at around the six week mark and abating at the start of the second trimester. Being eight weeks pregnant, she’d started to think she missed the boat.

No such luck.

She’s brushing her teeth when the first wave of nausea hits and she manages to spit toothpaste into the sink and hunch over the toilet bowl before she throws up. It’s been a few years since she performed this particular act of ignobility, though for very different reasons and in a different, gold-plated bathroom.

‘Thanks, baby,’ she croaks, and even kind of means it. Vomiting because you have a human growing in your uterus doesn’t carry quite the cache of shame that throwing up thousand dollar champagne she didn’t pay for does. Not in Rory’s mind, anyway – she knows some DAR members who would take champagne vomit over illegitimate love child scandal vomit any day.

Not that that’s saying much – half those women would take a bullet to the brain over an illegitimate love child scandal, with or without the vomit.

There’s a knock on the door.

‘Rory, honey? You okay?’ Lorelai’s voice is concerned, but not, Rory notes, quite as concerned as it might have been had she not been able to deduce the cause of the vomiting. In high school, the sound of an active gag reflex would have had Lorelai banging down the door; now, Rory has joined the ranks of the grown-ups who are expected to take an increase in gastrointestinal returns with grace and ample platitudes about the noble cost of motherhood.

‘Peachy!’ Rory yells. ‘My body just found out it’s going to be an incubator for the next seven months and it’s lodging a formal complaint.’

Cue another round of vomiting.

‘Ah, yes. Don’t worry, when the baby comes it will spend the first few months of its life spitting up and you will feel a deep, glorious sense of justice that is only marred by the fact that you have to clean up both yours and the baby’s vomit forevermore.’

‘Can we stop talking about vomit now?’

=

‘I have something to tell you.’

Rory is sitting on the edge of the bathtub, feeling secure enough to move away from the toilet bowl but not yet enough to leave the bathroom entirely. Lorelai stands in front of the bathroom mirror, applying a coat of her favourite lipstick – chosen for its delicious name, _Lickedy Split._

She looks over her shoulder at Rory, eyebrows raised.

‘Oh God, are you pregnant?’ she gasps, mock horror on her face.

Rory snorts.

‘Bravo, Margaret Cho. No, I’m uh… I’m going to go stay in Philadelphia for a while, to work on my book.’

That news earns her a putting down of the lipstick and a full-body swivel.

‘What? Why?’ Lorelai is clearly astonished; a second later, something clicks behind her eyes and the incredulity grows. ‘Philadelphia – with _Jess?’_

‘It was Jess’s idea, but I’m not staying _with_ Jess. I’m staying in the flat above Truncheon Books. I’ll have a dedicated writing space, and I can explore the city; the new environment will help my perspective, get me out of my rut, keep me inspired. Jess said I could help Truncheon with some editing, which is the best networking opportunity I could ask for and a great way to get an inside peek at the process of publishing a book, and that’s invaluable if I really want to make a go of this whole writer thing.’

The ‘why I’m going to Philadelphia and everyone named Lorelai should be happy about it’ speech is a little rehearsed; Rory thought it up after Jess went home last night and it occurred to her that her mom was far more likely to throw a stink fit than wave her off with a smile and a box of chocolates for Jess.

‘Yeah, I… that all makes sense, I guess,’ says Lorelai. ‘But it’s Jess. You don’t think it’ll be a little awkward?’

Rory laughs awkwardly. ‘No, of course not. We’re friends.’

‘You think he knows that?’

The first thought that runs through Rory’s head is _Why? You don’t think he does? What have you seen? Tell me everything!_ But she quickly remembers (insists) that she is thirty two and not seventeen, and reassures her mom.

‘Of course. It’s been years, Mom, we’ve both moved on. But it’s nice having someone to talk to who knows my history, who gets the writing thing, who doesn’t actually have a personal stake in this pregnancy. Jess was really great when I was upset after I talked to Logan.’

Lorelai’s jaw drops.

‘You talked to Logan?! How do I not know this?’

Rory winces.

‘Sorry, I forgot I didn’t tell you last night. I told Logan, he wanted to get back together, I said no, things got nasty. There was a split second mention of visitation so at least I know that’s on his radar, but for now it’s very Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ says Lorelai, and she looks genuinely upset for Rory. She also looks a bit uncomfortable, and Rory thinks it might be because she told Jess about the Logan debacle before she told her mom – which was not so much a decision as it was the product of an auspiciously timed phone call, but is still a change of pace. Maybe it’s because Rory is choosing to run off to another city eight weeks into her pregnancy, which has echoes of Lorelai and Emily to it, even if this is a completely different circumstance and she totally plans on coming back.

‘Don’t be sorry,’ she says, and means it. ‘I’ll be fine no matter what he does, and so will the baby.’

She gives her mom a small smile, and tries to put into the smile that she knows she’ll be fine because of Lorelai, who showed her what fine looks like. Lorelai must get it, because when she smiles back her eyes are shiny.

‘I know,’ she replies. ‘I just thought you’d want to stick around here though, to be honest; for your doctor’s appointments and everything. You know Pancake Al has a pregnancy special –‘

‘- Veal with poached eggs and caviar? He hates pregnant women and wants them to suffer.’

Lorelai laughs.

‘I’m only going for six weeks, Mom. I’ll come home for my second trimester; we can find out the sex of the baby together. I only have one doctor’s appointment over the next six weeks and Paris already found a great temporary ob-gyn in Philly who’s going to let me record everything he says at my appointment so my ob-gyn here doesn’t miss anything. But there’ll come a point when I _can’t_ go  – I don’t really want to subject Philadelphia to my fat ankles and pregnancy waddle; nor do I want to deprive Star’s Hollow of the spectacle, and I can’t do it once the baby’s born. It’s now or never.’

=

She leaves her mother’s house a couple of hours later, promising to call every day. In return, her mom promises to lie if Paris calls and say that she took all thirty pounds of pregnancy literature with her to Philly. This side of the promise really serves them both, because while Paris would go totally Khal Drogo-with-the-melted-gold on Rory’s ass for neglecting her education, she would make time to go Khal-Drogo-ripper-of-tongues on Lorelai for not using her mom mojo and forcing Rory into compliance.

Rory feels that she’s extracted most of the useful documents from the paper mountain, and she has those scanned onto her tablet. Despite what Paris might think, essays about the sociological roots of placenta disposal in Western hospitals feel a little beyond the scope of what she needs to know for a regular pregnancy experience.

Lorelai wishes her goodbye with a tight hug and a wrapped present that turns out to be a maternity dress it’s _way_ too early for her to wear. It says FUTURE MILF on it in sequinned pink letters and has such a wealth of space in the stomach area that Rory hopes she accidentally bought it from the ‘expecting twins’ section. Luke, who likes to hug but is usually much more reserved about it than Lorelai, holds her like she’s about to ship off to war and tells her to try the carbonara at Ralph’s Italian, which is apparently a restaurant that Jess takes him to when he’s in town.

Having not told him herself what she was doing, she assumes Lorelai filled him in, but as she’s getting into the car Lorelai grabs her arm and whispers, ‘Jess called Luke last night to tell him you were going to Philly. Apparently he’s nervous about it.’

Rory sits down, shuts the door and makes a face at Lorelai through the glass. Her heart does a funny flip-over thing.

Luke and Jess talk all the time; it doesn’t mean anything. And of course Jess is nervous; he invited an emotionally compromised pregnant woman to live above his place of employment. He’s probably padding the flat above Truncheon with Styrofoam right now.

=

Before leaving Star’s Hollow, she stops off to see Lane and fills her in on the last twenty four hours.

‘You’re staying with Jess?’ asks Lane, wide-eyed.

‘Not _with_ Jess,’ Rory says, exasperated. ‘Why does everyone think that? I’m staying at his work. The place above it. So I’m staying _near_ Jess, but at a perfectly respectable distance.’

Lane is concerned and indignant on her behalf about Logan’s reaction, but honestly seems far more interested in the Jess of it all. Rory’s glad that no one seems very worried about her ability to raise a kid regardless of her relationship with its father, but she is surprised that both her mom and Lane have zeroed in on the guy who’s helping her with her career over the guy whose DNA will contribute to the appearance and personality of her offspring.

‘You and Logan are predictable,’ says Lane, when Rory calls her on it. ‘He’s going to sulk, and then he’ll come around and be a relative gentleman and take the kid on expensive holidays. Probably re-propose to you between his marriages. This re-emergence of Jess as a significant figure in your life is _drama.’_

‘It’s actually not,’ says Rory honestly. ‘It feels natural.’

‘I’m sorry, and you want me to react to that without squealing?’

=

It takes her about three hours to get to Philadelphia, give or take a detour through a Taco Bell drive-through. It’s been forever since she went – two years ago when she was doing a piece on a Rembrandt exhibit at the Museum of Art – and even longer since she visited Truncheon. It’s a beautiful city, practically invaded by artists – galleries seem to pop up as frequently as Starbucks, and Jess has clearly found his people – maybe Rory is projecting, but it seems like everyone lucky enough to find a bench or outdoor table to sit at is reading a book.

She parks around the corner from Truncheon and walks up the side to enter in the front, expecting to run the gauntlet of receptionist/assistant/curious workmate before getting to Jess, but she stops dead when she turns onto the street and sees him right in front of her, leaning against the wall with a cigarette between his fingers, head tilted to the ground as he scuffs at the sidewalk with his toe. Hair falling into his eyes. Waiting for her.

She’d thought she liked the scruffy look (which he clearly adopts for trips between Philly and Star’s Hollow; what kind of Kerouac) but the whole ‘button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up’ thing has her digging her fingernails into her palms with outrage.

 _Friends can think friends are hot,_ she argues to herself, and shakes her head, stepping towards him.

‘I thought you would have quit by now,’ she says, and Jess jumps, straightening up when he meets her eyes.

‘Yeah, well,’ he says ruefully. ‘It’s this or heroin, so…’

Suddenly his eyes go wide, and he drops his cigarette, putting it out with his heel.

‘Shit, sorry. I won’t smoke around you, I promise.’

‘Thanks,’ she says. ‘In exchange, I will not give you a hard time about the fact that you do a costume change between here and Star’s Hollow.’

‘What?’

‘It’s not that I don’t appreciate the traveller chic, but I have _never_ seen you in a button-down shirt before. As an adult, anyway.’

‘Uh, Luke and Lorelai’s wedding?’

She laughs. ‘That doesn’t count!’

‘Does too.’

‘It doesn’t, weddings have a dress code.’

‘Rory, you’re supposed to say _does not_ so I can say _does too_ and then we go back and forth for twenty minutes until you get sick of me and give up. You’re such an only child.’

‘First of all, I’m not an only child –‘

‘I don’t care how many sisters you have, you are the quintessential only child.’

‘ – and second of all, if I’m an only child you are. Neither of us grew up with our siblings.’

‘That’s true, but the sophistication of my ten year old self’s discourse with Liz gave me a pretty accurate stand in for that experience.’

They both smile at each other.

‘Thank you so much for inviting me,’ Rory says, seriously. ‘It’s such a big help, and I’m sure it’s kind of inconvenient. I know you won’t tell me that even if it is, but don’t think I’m taking this for granted. I am going to be super helpful, and very tidy, and a writing _fiend.’_

‘I’d like to see that,’ says Jess, amused. ‘But seriously, it’s no trouble. You’re an investment, Gilmore.’

He holds the door open for her and she ducks inside, climbing stairs until she gets to a big wooden door with a blackboard hanging on it that has something written on it in a cramped, loopy scrawl; Rory leans in a little to read what it says.

_We can never give up longing and wishing while we are thoroughly alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger after them._

  * _George Eliot_



She draws back, feeling a little red-faced, and glances at Jess with her eyebrows raised.

‘This is your entrance sign? You really need at least a caption that says ‘publishing house’ or people are going to think this is a very different kind of business,’ she jokes. She’d thought he might be more awkward than her if anything, but he just looks straight at her, and gives a good-natured shrug.

‘You might have missed it with all your ribbing of my outfit, but it says _Truncheon Publishing_ outside. This is just a pride thing; there’s this weekly poker game and whoever wins gets to pick the daily quote until somebody else steals the crown. This is Matthew’s doing; he’s actually not a big George Eliot fan, but Chris is. The Mill on the Floss is the only Eliot he hates, so this is very political.’

‘Aha.’

Without another word, she pushes the last door open and enters the office.

The first thing that strikes her is that Jess’s long-ago description of ‘desks and crap piled up everywhere’ is a bit of an understatement. There are desks arranged in an approximate circle in the middle of the room, centred around a big mahogany table upon which stacks of what she assumes are manuscripts are piled. Each desk seems to operate as its own kind of ecosystem, with an organizational method adapted by and for its owner; a brown-haired man is bent over his laptop, typing furiously with an assortment of papers pinned under his elbow in a configuration less like a stack and more like bonfire kindling. Next to him, a girl with bright pink hair is clipping a sheet of paper to a large metal framework that grows out of her desk like a weird tree, holding aloft a novella’s worth of material while keeping the surface of her desk free. Around the circle it continues in varying degrees of creativity, about six desks in total, some manned and others vacant – including one with a little gold placard that reads _Jess Mariano._ His desk is actually relatively neat; there’s an in-tray and an out-tray, a small bookshelf filled with paperbacks, a laptop and a picture frame that Rory guesses has something to do with Doula.

The lopsided ceramic owl pencil holder definitely has something to do with Doula.

Rory’s so absorbed by her examination of the office that she doesn’t realize she hasn’t been introduced until Jess clears his throat next to her and says, ‘Hey, guys.’

The four employees currently in the office – brown haired guy, pink haired girl, afro guy and surfer hair guy (the variation in hairstyles making them the easiest identifiers) – look up.

‘This is Rory.’

The lack of explanation makes it clear that he’s told them about her; the one closest to her, a brawny guy with shoulder-length, Pantene blonde hair and a tan (in high school Jess would have broken out in hives from proximity to this guy), rises from his chair and offers her his hand.

‘Nice to meet you, Rory,’ he says. ‘I’m Eddy.’ He has a _really_ strong handshake.

‘Eddy’s our art guy,’ Jess explains. ‘He makes sure we hang stuff that’s actually good and not just whatever Luisa’s nephew brings in from his sixth grade class.’

‘To hear Jess describe it, I’m quality control,’ complains Eddy. ‘I have a Bachelors’ degree in Art History and a Masters in Fine Art. I fucking _curate_ this place for you ungrateful bastards.’

‘Sure, buddy,’ says Jess. ‘Rory, you probably don’t remember Matthew and Chris, you met them like ten years ago –‘

‘Are you calling us forgettable?’ asks the brown haired guy. He’s got a kind face and truly terrible taste in sweaters; he waves. Rory does kind of remember him.

‘That’s Matthew,’ says Jess. ‘He’s the one who picked the cheesy George Eliot quote.’

‘It’s not cheesy,’ says Matthew, dignified. ‘It’s delightful.’

‘The guy whose literary sensibilities were being insulted with that choice is Chris.’

Jess points to the guy with the afro, who grins at her and throws a rubber ball at Matthew’s head. Chris’s desk, unlike his opponent’s, is neat as a pin. Rory gets a distinct Oscar and Felix vibe from those two.

‘This is Blake –‘ Jess gestures to the girl with the pink hair, who has a cell phone clamped between her cheek and her shoulder as she types but offers Rory a sincere smile.

‘And Luisa’s out today, meeting with an author. The five of us do the editing and publishing; all six of us share the event planning stuff and the marketing, unless we contract out.’

‘It’s really nice to meet you all,’ Rory says, earnest. ‘Thank you so much for letting me stay. This all looks… amazing.’

She loves it already. It reminds her of a newspaper office, the hustle and the reading and the writing, only there’s for sure a lower percentage of Type A personalities and a far more relaxed dress code. Whenever she stepped into the Yale Daily News her heartbeat would pick up; here, she feels as comfortable as if she were in her mom’s living room. Jess’s friends all clearly love their job if their desks are anything to go by; they’ve all cultivated these unique, creative little worlds inside the bigger Truncheon universe, and they orbit the shared table in the middle like a solar system.

She glances at Jess, who can clearly see that she’s impressed and looks very pleased.

‘I hear you’re going to be helping us with some editing, Rory,’ pipes up Blake, who has finished her phone call. She has an English accent that Rory didn’t expect.

‘Absolutely,’ nods Rory. ‘Wherever you guys need me, I’d love to help. I’ve done newspaper editing and I know it’s not quite the same so I might need some whipping into shape, but I’m a fast learner.’

‘I’m sure you’ll be fine,’ Jess reassures her. Then, loudly; ‘She went to Yale.’

Rory rolls her eyes as the others ooh and ah, half sincere and half teasing.

‘I hear you’re going to be staying upstairs,’ says Chris. ‘I apologize in advance. Matthew used to live there and I’m pretty sure it still smells like his feet.’

‘I thought she was staying with Jess?’

‘No, she’s staying upstairs.’

‘Are you sure?’

 _‘I’m_ sure,’ Rory says wryly.

 _‘I_ hear you knew Jess in high school,’ says Matthew slyly, ‘and are therefore an invaluable source when it comes to procuring embarrassing anecdotes – better yet, _photos.’_

‘Okay,’ Jess interrupts quickly. ‘We’re going upstairs now. Get back to work, slackers.’

He guides her around the swamp of desks and paper with a hand on the small of her back, and she follows him up a narrow staircase to a locked door which he opens with a key from his pocket.

‘Keep this one,’ he says, handing her the key. ‘There are a few spares floating around, so if you lose it just ask me or one of the others.’

The door swings open and Rory steps inside.

The flat is small, and a little dingy, but comfortably furnished and clean. There are squashy sofas, and (of course) a bookcase, and Jess shows her the kitchen – complete with working stove and microwave – and the one bedroom of three that they tidied up for her. There are clean sheets, and fake flowers on the coffee table that she’s sure none of the Truncheon guys left behind, and someone has clearly been through and dusted.

‘What do you think?’ asks Jess, working at sounding casual.

Rory can’t help it; she hugs him. A little too hard, probably – she can hear him go ‘oof’ as she slams into him, wrapping her arms around his neck. For a second he’s frozen and she worries she’s making him uncomfortable, but just as she’s about to loosen her grip his arms come around her back, surprisingly strong, and she can actually feel his smile where his mouth is pressed against her hair.

It’s a fucking great hug – he is warm and solid and smells amazing and clearly doesn’t want to let go anymore than Rory does – and she reminds herself for the millionth time that acknowledging that Jess is hot and also a great guy that she wants to hug a lot does not mean she has feelings for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who has left kudos, bookmarked and especially commented. Your feedback is amazing and I'm very, very grateful. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy this chapter! Rory has six weeks of Philadelphia and near-constant Jess ahead of her... 
> 
> Many of you expressed interest in some Jess POV (and thanks :)) but I'm going to take commenter @Rumaan's suggestion and do some outtakes instead; this means I can move the story along at a better clip. I can't promise when that will be starting, but I do have some stuff written (any requests?).
> 
> What did you think?

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first ever attempt at writing in the Gilmore Girls world and it's a very specific style so I'd love to hear if anybody has ideas as to how I could improve (or what you liked, so I can do it more :p). I loved the revival as a jumping off point, but man does it need an ending. Hence the fic :)


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